23 August 2012 10:32 AM

On Having No Sense of Humour

This is an accusation which cuts both ways, and which has some interesting effects. I have actually laughed quite a lot at the po-faced responses which my previous posting (‘What I think about Rape’) produced. ‘Mr Hitchens! You really have no opinion on rape ! I am shocked!’ etc etc. Thanks to the Internet, anyone can find out what I have, in the past, said about this interesting subject. Now who has no sense of humour?

My point, perhaps a little satirical, is that it is now more or less futile to offer any sort of reasoned opinion on this subject. There are others, notably homosexuality, where the same rules apply. Islam is very difficult. For instance, in my recent controversy with a Muslim journalist, I never attempted to provide an exact parallel to his remarks about cattle, in which a fictitious Christian made a fictitious comparable statement about followers of that person’s religion. I did not do so because of the danger that such a parallel might be unscrupulously attributed to me as if I had myself said it, and that enough people would then choose to believe that I had said this for it to do me serious damage.

As for the Thought Police, it is true that the real police do increasingly patrol the boundaries of speech and thought (and those who doubt it are reminded, yet again, of the worrying cases described in my ‘The Abolition of Liberty’, and of the current worthy but probably doomed campaign for the revision of the 1986 Public Order Act). But the imposition of speech codes in public life is generally achieved through different methods. An excellent study of American campus speech codes (‘The Shadow University’) explores the way in which the powerful protections of the First Amendment to the US Constitution have been overridden, in places where speech should above all be free. Similar problems exist in many British universities, where there is no First Amendment, policed by militant student societies.

I have described (largely in vain because my howling pack of instinctive critics invariably dismiss it as personal special pleading, or complaining at my ill-fortune, which it is not) the demonstrable narrowness of the British book publishing industry. Anyone here who seriously believes that the BBC is open to all political persuasions just hasn’t been paying attention. Nobody needs to be arrested. Their stuff just isn’t published, or if it is, it languishes in the publisher’s warehouse or in the back of the shop, unreviewed and unread. While the books that are approved of are widely reviewed, placed on display tables, their authors are interviewed in the papers, on BBC radio and on TV, their books become ‘book of the week’ or ‘book at bedtime’ on the BBC and (quite often) those authors are given TV series in which they can promote themselves further.

Then there are the broadcasting figures (this is quite common in the USA) who are suddenly snatched from the air after they have made some unacceptable remark. The point that I was making about rape (some people even asked me if this was a coded statement of agreement with George Galloway. No. ) was that any dissent from a very hard line radical feminist view on this subject is not greeted with reasoned criticism, but with a campaign to drive the person involved out of public life. If you cannot see what is wrong with this, I am at a loss. The result of this is – as all deterrent enforcements of rules are – an effective restriction on the expression in public of an ever wider range of opinions. Will I end up in jail for my opinions? If current trends continue, and I live long enough, I think it quite conceivable. How many things now take place in this country, that were unimaginable and ludicrous a mere 20 years ago?

By the way, I get some criticism here for writing long posts. Nobody has to read them. This blog has almost from the start been an experiment on doing what others don’t do, which I rather enjoy and which I know some readers appreciate. I have spent many years writing for newspapers with absolute limits on length. I still do so. Here on this weblog I rather enjoy not having such constraints. If I want to dissect and rebut an argument I disagree with, I can do it here at as much length as I want. In that way, I come to understand my opponents better, and occasionally, they come to understand me better as well. Some people, I know, quite like this. Others don’t. That is as it must be. I cannot please everybody, and don’t seek to.

I personally find it useful for clarifying my own thoughts. It also compels me to research and to learn. One result of it is that I am now planning a book, provisionally titled ‘ The Phoney Victory’ which will discuss the national illusions and self-deceptions over the British role in the Second World War. I’m currently reading an excellent book on British-Polish relations in 1939, and a companion volume by the same author (Anita Prazmowska) about subsequent relations between the two countries. I’d never have done that if it hadn’t been for long discussions we have had here on the subject. I’m also, quite incidentally, deep into ‘A Line in the Sand’ by James Barr, kindly sent to me by a reader, Richard Carey, which explores the extraordinary conflict between Britain and France in the Middle East and which everyone remotely interested in the question should read. Current French posturing about the wickedness of the Assad regime is particularly ridiculous, in the light of that country’s far-from-gentle record as the colonial power in Damascus. As for William Hague…

But of course, if you prefer Twitter, you can always go there, and read its illuminating , if brief, articles, which almost universally agree that Peter Hitchens is a ****, and has no sense of humour. QED.

To Paul ( I can answer (honest I can) but I won't; because you are a creationist) P.

Thanks for the rant about creationists, but what it really means (because I never asked you to become one) is you are running scared of my scientific question about the second law of thermodynamics/inevitable entropy, and how belief in organic self-organisation (evolution) breaches this fundamental law? Well? does it, or does it not, fly in the face fundimental scientific law?
I suppose it's easier to grasp at my belief in intelligent purpose, and use that as a raft to reach calmer waters, but I'm afraid I remain seriously underwhelmed by your: 'oh! he's a creationists so his questions don't count' get out of jail card. Surely, the natural thing for any learned person is to explain his solid truths (as he/she sees them) even in the face of adversity. Those who avoid questions, are, by implication, without answers.
Its probably better that you continue to converse with your like-minded. I suppose it's far safer and less challenging for those of lesser conviction, and avoids that: "have I got it right" mind-set, all true enquirers should be happy to embrace.
Your goodbye is not lamented.

FYI - There is absolutely no noubt that evolution is the mechanism of biological development in the natural world, an ongoing process taking place over eons of time. The only discussion within evolutionary biology concerns the methods of selection, about which there is some disagreement.

While generally the 'fittest' survive (although Darwin never used this term) the selection criteria and their order are in some dispute. Basic natural selection now has a series of sub-sets. For example there is social selection, sexual selection, and some think even environmental selection. However, there is unquestionably no doubt that evolution through natural selection processes is the answer to biological progress in the natural work. Lamarkian 'adaptive' evolution is not considered a viable theory.

Dermot Doyle, I wasn’t aware that there are any other serious contenders to Darwin’s evolution theory out there. For example, I thought Lamark - and our latter-day epigenetic interpretation of him - was an addition or refinement to Darwin’s theory and not a replacement?

As for the 2nd Thermo. Law, isn’t that only a statistical measure within closed systems? As life on earth needs heat from the sun, that the co-ordinates for our particular ‘closed system’ would stretch far out into space. This in itself introduces the unknown effects of dark energy/mass and so complicates things further.

"Well Paul T, you really should get up to speed sir, even the "holy father" Dawkins is in a quandary over all the new stuff becoming available, because of the new methods and abilities to look right down there into this bewildering sub-cell world, and the hallmarks of an amazing Creator; are becoming more apparent by the day."

I fully understand that what is being found out/discovered about sub cellular biology and biochemistry is evidence of immense complexity and subtle interactions, which I assure you surprises and troubles no one in science.
It merely present a challenge to the investigators to design experiments to test their theories on what they they are seeing.

What Scientists cant and wont do is simply assume that because things are complex "someone must have designed it", which appears to be at the bottom of all your pronouncements in this area.
This is essentially the same bankrupt argument as, the evolution of the eye not being possible, transferred into the arena of the sub cellular world.

And here's a question for you

Even if you could categorically prove that a biological systems was "designed" (which of course you simple cant do), how do you get from this evidence of design to the idea that YOUR God did it?

How would you know that it wasnt entities like Douglas Adam's hyper intelligent pan-dimensional beings? (Or even the much vaunted flying spagetti monster)?

How exactly do you know that we are not the GSCE back off he class experiment in some pan dimensional being comprehensive?

Paul P (scientist)
Here's a final thought. Science? I looked up the definition of the word science, and this is how it was described:
"systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation."
Knowledge gained through observation and experiment? Now then, where does it say you are only allowed to understand the observation and experiment, within a materialism perspective? which is (same dictionary):
"The theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena."
Yes indeed, you go ahead and study the evidence under those terms, but it is not science in its true definition, so, therefore, it is not scientific.
How can you honestly investigate anything in the true spirit of science; if your pre-determined (before observation) criteria; allows only one form of explanation? Those who love to call themselves scientific, and remain within the strictures of materialism, are not only anti-science, they are also hypocrites.

To reiterate from my previous post, sir, our discussion is over. Creationism cannot possibly make any worthwhile contribution to the scientific body of knowledge.

Science, i.e. the understanding of nature, in the words of Richard Feynman, is like the unpeeling of an onion. Nature is revealed to us one layer at a time, one layer after the other. Sometimes we make mistakes and we have to re-think, but the unpeeling goes on, one layer at a time. Thus is a body of rational knowledge built up.

Creationism is knowing everything from the beginning. There's no 'unpeeling' of any layered structure of knowledge. It's already there, in a book, a compendium of Jewish folklore compiled in the Bronze Age. It's absurd.

There are no "intelligent decisions" buried in cell structure, or anywhere else in nature. Life is driven by the automaticity of chemical process, principally electronic process. In a very rudimentary nutshell, molecules that more readily permit the electron to occupy the lower energy levels combine. The process is automatic. The complexity of human life is testament to this process having been going on in nature for millions of years. We are the result of the automaticity of chemical process attenuated over millions of years by evolution.

Anyhow, this kind of dialogue with creationists goes on till the end of time, round and round we go. One moment the goalposts are here, the next they are over there. I have no intention of playing this game. Goodbye sir!

Ah! that's better, a little insult like I don't know what I'm talking about eh? Well I don't claim to be expert, but you would never find me writing a sentence like your: " RNA directs the making of different types of cell by selecting those parts of the DNA code it needs to make the particular cell it is charged with making" This proves you are in no position to judge. For a start RNA is not charged with making any cell, it is merely a bar-code like a recipe. A recipe can not make a cake; you need the chef for that. And in any event there are transcription factor proteins that direct the process of constructing a strand of mRNA without these proteins the RNA would be useless.
There you go again, the get out clause, with the breathtaking arrogance of a statement like: "There is no scientific knowledge to be gained or scientific end to be achieved in Creationism.: We both look at the same evidence and study the same scientific information (I think I have done a little more study on the subject than you sir, so lets have a little respect OK?), but my understanding doesn't count; because I don't accept such complexity can arise without a guiding intelligence. Even though it is an established scientific fact that order always degrades into chaos, never the other way around. Your way of understanding flies in the face of the second law of thermodynamics, the law of increased entropy, for you need things to happen the other way around: Order from chaos, Think about it, you believe order can arise from chaos, you have to. So, Paul T, who is being scientific? Me or you?
You ask:
"What "new methods" reveal sub-cell structure to bear the "hallmarks of an amazing Creator"? It's bunkum, sir."
Well, if intelligent decisions are being made at sub-cell level (and this is the conclusion being arrived at, to put it all down to chance copying error, is an insult to such beauty) that are in response to environmental pressures, it is a truly miraculous thing, an exquisite system of intelligent creation that could fit on a pin head half a million times. You're not easily impressed are you?

Dermot Doyle - 'No evolutionary advance can be achieved by corruption (never has an advantage been shown from this process). '

Is this the old creationist canard that all mutations are harmful, and therefore they can't bring about positive adaptations? What's strange about this argument is that it surely applies just as much to so-called 'micro-evolution', which most creationists accept, as to 'macro-evolution', which they don't.

Unfortunately, my scientific knowledge is rather wanting, so I'll just refer you to an article that should, I hope, address your concerns (if you click on the link in my name).

Well it all at once becomes apparent to me that you know little of genetics and evolutionary biology. All at once, also, it becomes apparent to me that you wish to pursue a religious tack and not a scientific one. You have declared yourself a creationist...

"....the hallmarks of an amazing Creator; are becoming more apparent by the day."

Thank you for your time but I'm afraid the discussion must end there. There is no scientific knowledge to be gained or scientific end to be achieved in Creationism. None whatever. What "new methods" reveal sub-cell structure to bear the "hallmarks of an amazing Creator"? It's bunkum, sir.
.

Reading my post again I think perhaps I am being a bit harsh, putting words into your mouth. Please forgive me, its just that I am sick to death of the gospel of evolution, and tend to react a little belligerently with its disciples.
Not because they believe in it; that's their absolute entitlement; its the fact that they are so blummin chauvinistic, right end of story, and regard all other theory as inferior. Secondly many who espouse the theory, have only basic knowledge of it, and simply repeat parrot fashion what they are spoon fed by agenda led authority, without even the slightest hint of healthy scepticism. Some are even still regurgitating the speckled moth nonsense, and Haeckel's embryo fraud, that's how little study they have done.
I am not suggesting you are one of those Paul P, and I hope you don't mind too much a little robustness in debate. Feel free to have a go at my perspective.

"Your DNA is fixed in the set of chromosomes you received from your parents"
Paul P

Perhaps not Mr Paul, for novelty may occur in a single generation. I Had more time to read your posting, and I'm sorry to say, that in modern biological terms; it's a little past it's sell-by date.
You remind me of the last scientists to learn (grudgingly accept) the uncomfortable truth that the "ether" (aether), regarded at the time as irrefutable scientific canon, was in fact a load of bunkum (In the famous Scopes trial (intended to embarrass Creationists), the ether was stated as a given. Here's a famous quote from the said trial, from one Prof. Reinke of Vanderbilt University):
"The theory of evolution is altogether essential to the teaching of biology …. To deny the teacher of biology the use of [evolution] would make his teaching as chaotic as an attempt to teach … physics without assuming the existence of the ether."
Who's embarrassed now I wonder? certainly not the creationists.

Well Paul T, you really should get up to speed sir, even the "holy father" Dawkins is in a quandary over all the new stuff becoming available, because of the new methods and abilities to look right down there into this bewildering sub-cell world, and the hallmarks of an amazing Creator; are becoming more apparent by the day.

"There is only inhibiting the process, i.e. damaging it, through corrupting influences."
I would agree with that, but it has to end there. No evolutionary advance can be achieved by corruption (never has an advantage been shown from this process). Yes, it may lead to such things as hemophilia etc, but in no way would it lead to evolutionary advances such as, wings, or a better eyesight etc.
The rest of your post is philosophical, and simply the opinion of Paul P, which is worth as much as the next man's (in our Elaine's case; woman's) but there is no reason whatsoever for anybody to pay attention to it.

It is a conundrum to be sure. A meritocracy would seem to be the sort of society we should be aiming to bring about. Who could oppose the idea of those having merit climbing to the top on their merits? Long have we held it that those at the top who have no merit should not be there. Conversely, those with merit languishing at the bottom should have at their disposal a mechanism by which to rise.

It seems to me that so long as we are at mid-distance with this arrangement then it appears to be working fine and morally. The meritoriously worthy rise while the meritoriously unworthy are toppled. While we see this process working before our eyes we believe we are on the way to our utopian ideal.

But in the ultimate, when all the worthy are at the top and all the unworthy are at the bottom, we will have a caste society where vertical movement will have stopped. It so happens that merit in our society is associated with intelligence, and therefore the upper strata in our ultimate meritocracy will comprise only the intelligent while the lower strata will comprise only the vacant. The vacant will of course be too stupid ever to outwit the intelligent and so society will remain caste-structured.

It wouldn't be long after the maturity of this caste system for the vacant at the bottom to assume the mantle of slavery, in permanent servitude to their brightly intelligent masters. There is nothing suggestive here of oppression or cruelty, simply that the vacant at the bottom will be too stupid to see a need for or have a desire to change things. Everyone will know his place and be happy to be in his place. Society will be completely caste-structured, paternalistic, happy and permanent.

In a way this makes a case against the grammar school. The grammar schools pluck the bright poor from their poor ranks and usher them to the top, ultimately depleting the bright concentration among the poor. The comprehensives keep the bright poor in their poor state, blocking their automatic rise to the top, and so society will continue to ferment from the bottom.

Thank you for your reply. If you have professional expertise in genetics and knowledge beyond my own then I must concede your point that, to some extent, genetic variation can be directly influenced by the environment (rather than the environment reacting positively or negatively to happenstance genetic mutation). Thank you for your point.

On the subject of RNA I recognise that RNA "makes nothing". That's why I used the word 'directs'. To keep a very complex mechanism simply rendered it was enough for my puropse simply to interpose RNA between the basic genetic information source, DNA, and the cellular structures that are the end product. Thank you agin for your point.

The genes are sets of DNA sequences that code for the cellular construction of the body. Most cells in the body contain the entire coding within the nuclei. You cant 'get' to this coding with a view to 'improvement' by way of 'interacting with the environment' on a casual, everyday basis. Tiny mutations will be recognised by the environment if they are conducive to better survival. This is the evolutionary process which happens to significant extent only over long periods of time.

Of course your entire body will 'interact with the environment'. You'll put on a coat if it gets cold and your teeth will certainly interact with hostile bacteria, but the basic genetic coding (notwithstanding purposeful interjection from geneticists) does not interact in the everyday manner which you suppose it does.

I don’t think that Elaine was arguing that ‘genes interact with the environment’, but that our environment acts on our human physiology (and not just in the harmful cancerous ways that you allude to). This is not mere semantics. Since the completion of the genome project, science is turning more to the idea that DNA is less a strict blueprint, and more a set of predispositions. It appears that other just as powerful influences - such as recognised internal factors (e.g. viruses, their number and composition, is if anything, more complex than our DNA) and external factors (e.g. epigenetics, again probably more complex than DNA) have at least as much influence on our human body and its healthy or otherwise physiological outcomes, as does DNA itself.

Do you really think that IQ is a measure of ‘basic intelligence’? Putting aside that Carole Vorderman has an IQ of 152, which would in itself seem to point to a glaring margin of error for this test (unless Carole V. is indeed a true stellar genius?). For me, the IQ test concentrates too much on pattern puzzles and so doesn’t seem to adequately explain intelligence - apart from maths skills, which require pattern recognition - and this is probably as usefully far as the IQ test does go. i.e. it is biased toward the numerically abstract and scientific. It is also ‘socially modern’ in that exam takers from a hundred years+ ago wouldn’t be able to make head nor tail of it.

You are slightly behind the times Paul P, for the latest research points in the direction of sub-cell direction of body plan (natural genetic engineering) based upon intelligent decisions arrived at by the information absorbed from the immediate environment. So, in fact genes *do* interact with the environment, and this explains apparent anomalies such as the sudden appearance of the Polar Bear, and eyeless cave-fish suddenly regaining their eyes etc. Chance plays no part at all,and the idea that it does; will soon be a relic of erroneous s nineteenth century biological theory

You also say.
"The mechanism is complex but generally speaking RNA directs the making of different types of cell by selecting those parts of the DNA code it needs to make the particular cell it is charged with making".
RNA makes nothing, Its just software. Hardware tasks such as cell manufacture are carried out other agents. The RNA (tRNA) supplies the ribosome with the template (information) and its the Ribosome that makes the protein, and all the rest is done by those manufactured proteins (loads of em). including the making of DNA/RNA.

Posted by: Paul P | 28 August 2012 at 11:56 AM
You appear to miss an important point on Meritocracy i.e. it almost by definition is anti-utopian. Its aim is simply not utopian, it primary goal is only to attempt to create more equality of opportunity, not promote equality of outcomes.
And in general it can largely be achieved without openly proscribing stuff, or operating and forcing on others any irrational ideological dogma. E.g. you could largely destroy the independent fee playing schools sector mere by providing state funded selective education that secured most of the advantages of paying.
(Of course in a UK context you might still have your Etons, Harrows etc but as post WW2 showed Grammar school educated youth easily matched and often outperformed their public school educated counterparts. (This I believe was the real reason for their abolition, the lets all equally achieve liberal/pinko drivel were effectively allowed to flourish in the state sector which of course doomed it to becoming the shambles that too much of it has. That and rank stupidity, inspired by petty snobbery of much of the lower middle class who were the real winners in the Grammar school system, (And still are in countries where it flourishes) who bought into the Tory party’s gross negligence on state Education.
Returning to meritocracy's lack of utopian ambitions those who undertstand the principle recognise the limits of its agenda to attempt to create more equality of opportunity e.g. it understands that being able to pay for extra tuition, or knowing folk who work in the Square mile, or having a parent who's a lawyer will always give an advantage to folk already in the system but it still seeks to challenge the toxic and corrosive complacency of caste system with a deluge of fresh and hungry talent. The increasing castification of the UK’s “socially influential” professions is one of the most damaging effects of the comprehensive education system versus the grammar school system I feel.
Huxley's novel was a satire but if want to see where the absurdities of a rigid caste system undermines national development and fundamentally corrodes a society, compared to system that notionally offers all more similar opportunities to develop themselves. Compare the still struggling and corrupt to the core shambles that represents much of India today to the much slicker performance of China. (Not of course corruption free)
And I stress that I am not remotely advocating any kind of totalitarianism as a route to meritocracy only thinking about the element of opportunity levelling the Chinese system brings compared to the idea that only certain castes deserve to succeed,( and so largely are allowed to succeed regardless of actual talent) that is the reality in much of India today. And I suggest that it is the incidental meritocratic elements of the Chinese system that accounts for the performance differences between the countries. (E.g. Compare the triumph that was the Beijing Olympics versus Dehli’s shambolic offering at the Commonwealth games.)

I may not know all the biology lingo of the rest of your post but I really don't know how you can say that.
Our entire person; our personality and our intelligence is determined by genes, is it not? And doesn't our personality and our intelligence interact with the people and things around us (which is our environment)?

Posted by: Colin Johnstone | 23 August 2012 at 11:51 AM
"For reasons I cannot understand, I find few things more offensive than a 15 year old girl in a moral frenzy over 'discrimination'."

Maybe its because the said teenager is really pretty ill equipped for moral outrage furnished (some might say brainwashed) as they are essentially with the thoughts and opinions of the "authorities" who educated them
.
And this for me applies regardless of the cause of the outrage, seeing teenagers outraged about abortion creeps me out as much as hearing them talk grade one Uni of former poly socio drivel about our apparent moral obligations to Africa.

I think its because its so obvious in most cases they really have no personal handle at all on the issue causing their angst/outrage?

Its surely a bit of tragedy that so many fail to get past this imposed "sensitivity" to bete noirs of their educational environment. But I'm sure some would argue that can be a good thing usually if its their bete noirs of course.

Indeed, there are different 'forms' of intelligence. There is a very narrow band of intelligence which we might call 'smart'. If you are smart with money you get to the top very quickly. Conversely you won't find many particle physicists at the very top of society. They are more to be found on the very average middle class housing developements in the suburbs rather than on country estates. So while intelligence in our society, ambitiously exploited, can lead to elevated social status (very few particle physicists are on council estates, although they might have originated there), it pays more to be smart, crafty and cunning.

IQ is a measure of basic intelligence, and the more research that is done into the nature of intelligence the more rudimentary does the IQ testing appear to be. Some people just seem to be good at doing puzzles. My calculator is way quicker than me at arithmetic, but is hopless at interpretive history. Generally speaking intelligence is what you have, while IQ is a measure of how you show it to the world by ticking some 'rough guide' boxes.

A meritocracy seems to be a form of society we should be aiming at. It seems intuitively proper to reward the meritorious. Merit, however, can mean many things. A good person has merit, yet could be very stupid. How does a good, stupid person rise to the top in our society where merit (from the perspective of having beneficially contributed) is a function of intelligence? Not many stupid people design aeroplanes or transplant livers. Yet the acquaintence of good people makes society a pleasant place to inhabit.

Nevertheless meritocracy understood as utopia will in the ultimate become dystopia. A good job, then, that true meritocracy is as yet, and as you suggest, a fantastical concept that we hope will never be realised. Huxley satirised such a society in his Brave New World, a caste society where (very briefly) the super-bright were permanently at the top while the super-vacant languished permanently at the bottom. In Huxley's world intelligence had run out of practical things to do at the top and had moved on into the world of 'experience' fuelled by drugs. An ironic twist, then, to modern social perceptions where in Huxley's utopia the poor worked hard and diligently and were thus meritorious while the rich were quite useless, zonked out of their heads as they were most of the time. But the meritorious poor were too stupid to have any hope of upsetting the hierarchical caste system.

Genes don't 'interact with the environment" (except in so far as they may become corrupted. Cancer may have a corrupted gene origin or component. The environment won't 'improve' our genetic status - notwithstanding very tiny mutations leading to evolutionary development.)

Your DNA is fixed in the set of chromosomes you received from your parents. Every cell in your body (except the brain if I'm not mistaken) contains the entire code to make every part of your body. The redundancy, as it were, is colossal, but that's the way evolution works. The mechanism is complex but generally speaking RNA directs the making of different types of cell by selecting those parts of the DNA code it needs to make the particular cell it is charged with making. And so the body is constructed, renewed periodically and repaired. There is no 'improving' this mechanism by voluntary means. There is only inhibiting the process, i.e. damaging it, through corrupting influences.

In the case of intelligence our DNA codes for the molecular arrangement of the brain and the connections made between the 'intelligence' operative cells. As I remarked in an earlier post, this is the subject of ongoing research and so the state of knowledge on this is continuing to improve. But as of today it is not thought that our DNA coded intelligence can be 'improved' through voluntary process, only that whatever intelligence we were blessed with in the first place can be used to its full potential by mental discipline and training.

The social correlation with intelligence at our state of civilised development is as yet very mixed. There are stupid rich and bright poor aplenty. In a society bent on rewarding meritorious achievement, however, the drift will be for the bright to work their way to the top and the vacant to consolidate at the bottom. Only a political input will prevent the bright in any number (dangerous enough to threaten a caste society) establishing themselves at the top with the vacant languishing at the bottom.

The 'waste of intelligence' is a perspective from the point of view of society benefitting as a whole from the intelligence of each of us being used to its full potential. Intelligence is of course a personal possession and its 'waste', as such, entirely up to the individual to decide for himself or herself. If you want to contemplate the paradoxes of infinity in the mathematics of cosmology while driving a bus, then provided you keep your eyes peeled you are entirely at liberty to do so with no pejorative input from me.

My information on this is that you can use your innate intelligence to its full potential or you can waste it.
Paul P | 26 August 2012 at 09:51 PM

That could be true or it could also be true, as a lot of people think, that intelligence develops as our genes interact with our environment. But if IQ tests are the only way of measuring intelligence and they are not fool proof, then how can we really know what their *innate intelligence* was? We can't dissect their brain and even if we could we wouldn't really know what to look for.

But even if it is just a question of developing our innate intelligence to it's full potential, then our environment is most definitely going to affect how well we do that. And if that's the case, then we can't make a sweeping generalization and say that the lower economic classes have lower IQ's because if their environment had been different they could very well have developed their innate intelligence to a higher degree.

"I have known highly numerate darts players, labourers and bus drivers in occupational life, who in my opinion might have made successful mathematicians if only they had had the opportunity and motivation. If this were the case they could be said to have wasted their intelligence."

I wouldn't say that they necessarily wasted their intelligence. I have had many jobs and I liked the ones that didn't always engage my mind because it gave me time to ponder life. I didn't have to use my mind to do my job but I could use it to think about other things.

Paul P – if the reliability of IQ tests is so uncertain, and if there are many disparate forms of intelligence as you suggest (most of which are not tested for by any formal assessment, so far as I'm aware), then I don't see how you can draw any conclusions from the alleged correlation between IQ and social class – let alone given how far our society is from being a true meritocracy.

In truth, I think a true meritocracy is a distant fantasy, given humankind's propensity for partiality and croneyism, and the natural advantages afforded by wealth in any system. And there will no doubt always exist any number of ways of achieving high status through luck or dishonesty. But, from the way you describe it, I'm not so sure that a totally meritocratic society is all that desirable anyway.

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